Development Players

[Curtis]

I think it has been great that already this season we have seen some young development players named in the squad and getting some match day experience.

So far we have seen Jack Timberlake, Ollie Spicer, & Reece Mather make appearances, and on Saturday Balu Makumbi was in the squad.

But are we likely to have the patience & resources, and are we able to provide the opportunities to enable these players to develop into good quality Step 1 or 2 players? (our web-site currently says Jack Timberlake is ‘OUT ON LOAN’… maybe I’ve missed an announcement, it would be great to have some info on where he has gone).

Last season we had Oscar Lucey & Kai Allsopp that looked promising, and if I recall went out on loan to Thame & Ascot….. are they still signed with us but out on loan again?

And lastly, did Josh Stranks come through our EDS programme? I thought he played well in our pre-season match against Luton U21’s…… is he now at Thame?

 

[grandad]

There was an X/Twitter post a week ago (?) saying Jack was now on dual reg with Badshot Lea.

[Curtis]

21 minutes ago, grandad said:

There was an X/Twitter post a week ago (?) saying Jack was now on dual reg with Badshot Lea.

Thank you…. it looks like Jack made his debut for Badshot Lea on Saturday. He came on at half-time and scored in a 5-3 away defeat to a play-off place Kingstonian (Badshot Lea are bottom and winless so far).

The Badshot Lea team also included the familiar names of Kai Allsopp & Harvey Harry.

Edited 1 hour ago by Curtis

[Reading Rebel]

1 hour ago, Curtis said:

I think it has been great that already this season we have seen some young development players named in the squad and getting some match day experience.

So far we have seen Jack Timberlake, Ollie Spicer, & Reece Mather make appearances, and on Saturday Balu Makumbi was in the squad.

But are we likely to have the patience & resources, and are we able to provide the opportunities to enable these players to develop into good quality Step 1 or 2 players? (our web-site currently says Jack Timberlake is ‘OUT ON LOAN’… maybe I’ve missed an announcement, it would be great to have some info on where he has gone).

Last season we had Oscar Lucey & Kai Allsopp that looked promising, and if I recall went out on loan to Thame & Ascot….. are they still signed with us but out on loan again?

And lastly, did Josh Stranks come through our EDS programme? I thought he played well in our pre-season match against Luton U21’s…… is he now at Thame?

 

Most of these players have mainly only played academy/boys/youth football.

The obvious move is to send them out on dual reg to experience playing senior/men's football on a regular basis rather than sitting on the bench.

It'll soon become apparent if they are good enough to be considered for the 1st team.

One of the biggest problems as I see it is the gap between A23 academy football and the NLS which is huge.

Edited 55 minutes ago by Reading Rebel